Archive of Our Own ^beta

Luo Binghe didn’t know why he was still here.

Oh, he knew the factual reason for it, the chain of events that had led him down into the Endless Abyss—could analyse it, layer by layer, as if it were something that happened to someone else. Luo Binghe had had his demonic heritage revealed at the Immortal Alliance Conference. Luo Binghe had been discovered by his master, the Qing Jing Peak Lord, Shen Qingqiu. Luo Binghe had been cast down into the interdimensional crack that had opened right into this accursed hell: a space not even fit to be called its own plane, that didn’t belong to either the Human Realm or the Demon Realm. (And where had he heard that before?)

But it wasn’t like this turn of events had come unexpectedly. It wasn’t the first time Shen Qingqiu had hurt him. With the clarity of hindsight, it wasn’t even the first time Shen Qingqiu had tried to kill him. It was only the closest he’d come to success.

Something like this would have happened eventually.

But where did that leave Luo Binghe? Why did he continue to take each painful step forward?

Luo Binghe had tried to be good, in spite of everything in his way. He’d tried, and tried, and he’d ended up down here with nothing to show for it but a broken shard of Zheng Yang that he used to cut meat, what was left of the clothes on his back, and the hitchhiker in his head who had all too many opinions on what he should do and all too little ability to help him do it.

“Some way to refer to your shifu, boy,” was what Meng Mo said to that.

“Shifu,” Luo Binghe said dully.

He’d fallen into another dream without realising, it seemed. It was likely the exhaustion had overwhelmed him, and his body, with its inadequate cultivation, had insisted on him taking a dirt nap. Exhaustion permeated his being, all the way through his spiritual veins; there was no way Luo Binghe was going to wake up on his own.

Meng Mo huffed at him, though not without concern. It was understandable. Their fates were tied together.

“Wake me up,” Luo Binghe said.

“You’re not getting enough rest,” Meng Mo said. “Even with your constitution, you won’t last like this.”

Luo Binghe snorted. “I suppose if a monster came across my waking body right this moment and decided to take a bite out of it, Shifu would save the day.”

Meng Mo was unimpressed. “You didn’t rest when I told you to.”

“Because there are so many places to rest, in this hellhole.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, boy,” Meng Mo snapped. “Do you think I enjoy living a life hanging in the balance? I want us out of here as much as you do.”

Somehow, Luo Binghe doubted that. “Then, Shifu,” he said, an acid feeling churning in his chest, “wake me up.”

“You’re fine, right now,” Meng Mo said. “You passed out in a safe alcove. You don’t even remember this?” His tone softened. “Get some rest.”

But Luo Binghe wasn’t in a mood to be charitable. “I’m not going to get any rest listening to your nagging.”

Meng Mo looked increasingly incensed. “And I don’t intend to wake you up, boy, so what do you intend to do about it?”

Well.

Meng Mo had taught him a lot of things about dream manipulation. He only had to apply that knowledge.

Luo Binghe laid the dream representation of his body down on the imaginary ground and closed his eyes.

“Entering an inner dream?” Meng Mo yelled. “It’ll be a much greater effort to return to the waking world—you know this! If you do need to wake up, it’s only going to delay you!”

“Shifu insisted it was safe,” Luo Binghe said. “Wherever I happen to have passed out.”

“You—!”

Luo Binghe tuned him out.

Dreams were much more convenient, in that way. You couldn’t really just switch off physical senses like that.

He didn’t have the energy to shape the dream, so maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised at what his subconscious filled in for him: the cruel scenery of the Endless Abyss, crackling with a toxic heat.

Had he spent so long here he couldn’t imagine anything else?

But Luo Binghe wasn’t alone.

He felt a strange wrinkle in the fabric of this world, almost reminiscent of an external visitor. But that couldn’t have been possible. Down here, in this godforsaken place between realms, there was no one who could even have accidentally—or deliberately—entered his dream. A dream within a dream, even—that not even Meng Mo could force his way into!

The presence was familiar, but also… not. Luo Binghe could feel it, approaching at his back.

A shudder went down his spine.

Luo Binghe turned to face the presence—

Only to be greeted by a figure he knew frighteningly well, dressed in magnificent teal silk.

Something deep-rooted inside him curled up in dread.

“Shizun?” Luo Binghe said, barely a whisper.

“‘Shizun’?” Shen Qingqiu repeated. “Who’s your Shizun?”

Luo Binghe stared at Shen Qingqiu, dressed as he always was in the fine robes of his peak. Shen Qingqiu examined himself under his gaze, and his expression turned into one of disgust.

Now that was more familiar. But what Shen Qingqiu said next—

“God, what am I wearing?” Shen Qingqiu said. He drew Xiu Ya from his waist, twisted it around to catch the light, and made a face like it had personally offended him. “Wait—Shen Qingqiu? Why am I Shen Qingqiu?!”

“Sh-Shizun?!”

“Binghe?”

They gaped at each other in silence.

“This is a strange dream,” Shen Qingqiu observed faintly.

That was one way to put it.

Luo Binghe watched this strange version of Shen Qingqiu look over himself, judgementally picking over everything he had on.

Shen Qingqiu had never called him ‘Binghe’. Shen Qingqiu had never, would never have looked at him with eyes just this side of kind, with a light twinge to the brow that one could have easily mistaken for real, genuine concern. Luo Binghe surely understood that now. He’d paid too high a price at the edge of the Abyss not to have learned the painful lesson that there had never been any hope for Shen Qingqiu to look at him with anything resembling actual care.

Maybe some Abyssal monster had sprayed Luo Binghe with a hallucinogen. It wouldn’t be the first time—that was what he told himself, but deep inside, Luo Binghe’s heart felt something else.

“Shizun?” Luo Binghe said again.

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes snapped back up.

“Your disciple robes are falling apart,” he observed clinically. “Acid’s eaten away at your sleeves, the white fabric is stained to hell and back… and you don’t look like you’ve had a bath in a while, either.”

“This disciple apologises for his state of dress,” Luo Binghe said automatically.

“Why are you apologising?” Shen Qingqiu asked. He clucked his tongue, in almost benign exasperation. “Actually, why are you still calling me Shizun?”

Luo Binghe blinked. It was a fair question. The real Shen Qingqiu had made Luo Binghe’s current status as a disciple quite clear, back at Jue Di Gorge, so what was Luo Binghe even playing at?

“You’re in the Abyss now, clearly,” Dream Shen Qingqiu observed, with the air of someone who had just come to a conclusion. “I cast you down. You should hate me. There’s no sense in calling scum like me Shizun.”

“I… should hate you,” Luo Binghe agreed slowly, and then he wondered why he was bothering to agree.

“So what comes next?” Shen Qingqiu asked.

“What?”

“I don’t really get this scenario,” Shen Qingqiu said, with a casual shrug that was completely incongruous with his immortal scholar’s appearance. He looked around at their surroundings in this dreamscape—all liquid fire and rancid brimstone flowing between jagged shards of obsidian barely stable enough to support a child’s weight, but that Shen Qingqiu seemed to rest on like it was nothing. It seemed that Luo Binghe’s subconscious hadn’t been able to escape reality—but Shen Qingqiu was ever the untouched immortal.

An old resentment erupted in Luo Binghe’s heart.

“Why am I—Shen Qingqiu—even here?” Dream Shen Qingqiu continued, blithely unaware. “Why am I wearing all this? Nothing makes sense. I’m not sure when this is supposed to be, logically.”

He said these things more to himself than anything else, and Luo Binghe seethed inside at the cruel inattention, the almost casual way dream Shen Qingqiu disregarded his presence.

Maybe this was Shen Qingqiu, after all.

“You’re here in the Abyss,” Luo Binghe said, “because this is my dream, and I’m here.”

“But Shen Qingqiu was never in the Endless Abyss,” Shen Qingqiu said.

“No,” Luo Binghe said bitterly.

“But if this is a dream for you, too—” Shen Qingqiu broke off, considering. “Then I imagine some part of you wants me here. Yes.” He nodded. “That’d make sense.”

“Why would I want you anywhere near me?” Luo Binghe spat.

Right now he wanted—Luo Binghe didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t want to be tormented further with the visage of a man who he had put his trust in long after he should have known that such a thing would not bear any fruit. Luo Binghe knew only that he was perpetually cold, and hungry, and everything hurt, and—

And that he really just wanted everything to be over.

“Because you want to punish me, obviously,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Your dream brought me down here because you want me to pay for what I’ve done. Suffer like you’re suffering.”

The way he could say that, standing there exactly as Luo Binghe remembered him, like even dirt didn’t dare acquaint themselves with his sleeves—Shen Qingqiu didn’t seem like he was joking, or mocking him, but Luo Binghe had to laugh.

Luo Binghe had never before, in his life, raised his voice to his teacher, but there was a first for all things.

“Oh?” Luo Binghe said. “If that’s the case, then why do you look so pristine, like you always do? Some punishment this is! I’m standing here, looking no better than a beast, in tattered robes that are barely hanging together, and you… You—”

Luo Binghe clenched his jaw so hard he thought he heard something crack. Something probably did. No matter; it would heal up soon enough.

“You’re still perfect,” Luo Binghe spat. “Untouchable. And you’re just standing there, watching me? You think this is what I want?”

Shen Qingqiu fell silent.

“I—I didn’t mean to—” he said after a pause.

“Didn’t mean to what?”

The real Shen Qingqiu would never look this shaken, but Luo Binghe seized the smallest joy he could in squeezing this uncertain expression out of his haughty face.

“I’m sorry,” Shen Qingqiu said. “You’re right. This isn’t how the story is supposed to go.”

“Then fix it!” Luo Binghe cried.

Luo Binghe didn’t know what he expected to happen. But Shen Qingqiu seemed to have an idea. He pulled his outermost layer off his body, slowly, gingerly, like he was unfamiliar with it. Then came the ornate belt, and after that followed the headpiece that decorated Shen Qingqiu like a crown, leaving his long locks free to cascade down his body. Each layer removed fell to the side, where they were mercilessly abandoned to lava pools or dissolved by stray streams of sulphur.

Finally, Shen Qingqiu left himself standing in only his thin innermost robe.

The silk was nearly translucent. The fires of the Abyss, which had up till this moment only been a source of terror to Luo Binghe, served now to illuminate Shen Qingqiu’s figure like fickle candlelight. Light and shadow danced across his skin like playful partners.

Luo Binghe had never seen Shen Qingqiu quite like this.

His breath caught in his throat.

“Now we match,” Shen Qingqiu said.

“Match…?”

Shen Qingqiu didn’t elaborate. He simply watched the remainder of his fallen robes disintegrate into dust.

Luo Binghe watched along with him, in silence. When he couldn’t bear it any longer, he spoke again.

“So,” Luo Binghe dared to say, “what comes next?”

Shen Qingqiu’s bare feet wavered upon the ground. It seemed like he’d finally allowed gravity to act upon his dream-physical self; as he started moving, his steps resonated with weight, and he began to wobble upon the obsidian rock. He walked closer towards Luo Binghe, until he stopped by a lava pool that bubbled and boiled with untold spite.

“Is that all?” Luo Binghe said.

“No,” Shen Qingqiu said.

The distance between them had narrowed. It felt like something was in the air.

Shen Qingqiu took a deep breath, as if to prepare himself.

“This is how it should go,” Shen Qingqiu said, without further preamble, right before he abruptly turned sideways and flung himself directly into the lava—

—leaving the dream within a dream to end at the very moment he touched its surface.

---

“Huh,” Meng Mo said. “Kid—”

“We will not speak of this.”

---

They ended up speaking of it; there was only so far Luo Binghe could go suffering through the tribulation of the Endless Abyss before he sought out the only companion he had access to for some conversation.

“It’s not as unusual as you think,” Meng Mo said. “I’ve been around for centuries and centuries, passing through the dreams of young and old alike! Do you think I haven’t seen more than my fair share of strange sexual fantasies?”

“It was not a sexual dream,” Luo Binghe said.

“Right,” Meng Mo said slowly. “And I’m a spry young maiden.”

Luo Binghe’s mood grew foul. “Shifu, what about that dream screamed sexual to you? Was it the part where Shen Qingqiu flung himself into the lava for no rhyme or reason?”

“Well, the striptease before that—” Meng Mo began.

He paused.

“Actually, the lava part, also,” Meng Mo finished.

Luo Binghe wished Meng Mo was capable of dying. Again. “You can hardly consider that my subconscious’s doing,” Luo Binghe said instead. “That Shen Qingqiu was an interloper.”

He must have been. Luo Binghe was too shaken to recognise it at the time, but surely if he’d looked closer, he would have seen the telltale signs of foreign manipulation in the dreamscape; the blurred edges of a false reality, bent to someone’s will.

Despite not manifesting in a humanoid form this time, Meng Mo managed to give off the impression of giving Luo Binghe a look regardless. “Down here?” Meng Mo said. “There’s no one who could even reach your dreams, let alone invade them.”

“Well, it happened.”

Meng Mo sighed.

Why had Luo Binghe bothered talking to him, again? “I’m getting some real rest,” Luo Binghe declared. “Wake me if something takes a bite out of me.”

“Boy—”

Once again, Luo Binghe entered an inner dream.

This time, he found himself in a familiar classroom. The desks were arrayed in their usual grid, and Luo Binghe was in his usual seat, in the back row by the window, but there were no other students in the room, nor were there any indications that anyone had ever set foot in the space. Next to him, Ning Yingying’s desk, usually accompanied by the scent of various flowers or other, smelled of nothing at all.

Nevertheless, Luo Binghe looked up to see Shen Qingqiu standing in the front of the class.

Of all the people to show up. How distasteful.

Shen Qingqiu stood in a stupor, holding an open book without looking at anything in particular, as if he was not quite all there.

For a moment, Luo Binghe wondered what to do. He felt around this Shen Qingqiu’s dream presence, but couldn’t glean enough information; with Shen Qingqiu standing still, it was too difficult to tell if this Shen Qingqiu was truly an invading presence.

The logical next step was to provoke him, but how?

Luo Binghe could do anything right now. He could manifest a whole Zheng Yang, and run it through Shen Qingqiu’s gut. He could stab the man’s lungs instead, and watch as Shen Qingqiu choked on his own lifeblood, the way Luo Binghe had himself done only the other day, when a stray Bloodbone Boar had sunk its tusks into his torso. He could tie Shen Qingqiu up, and slowly bleed the man dry with a thousand cuts—

But this wasn’t the real Shen Qingqiu. What would any of this achieve? Shen Qingqiu’s hateful figure already took up more space in Luo Binghe’s mind than Luo Binghe ever wanted. Woe to Luo Binghe, left down here caring far too much, while the man who tormented him probably simply put him out of his mind—

If this was his own subconscious, Luo Binghe would only be hurting himself, in the end.

In the end, Luo Binghe called out simply. “Shizun.”

Shen Qingqiu blinked. Like he was taking his first breath, his body filled with life; light entered his eyes, and when he turned them upon Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu brightened like he never had in Luo Binghe’s memory.

This couldn’t be real.

“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu said. It was far too warm a tone for that face.

“Shi…” Luo Binghe began.

He paused. He didn't want to call this man Shizun again, but now that he had the option not to, suddenly he couldn't think of anything.

Shen Qingqiu seemed not to be aware of Luo Binghe’s inner predicament. “I can’t believe I’m dreaming about you again,” he said.

“This is my dream,” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu eyed him.

“… Sure.”

“Really.”

“So, for whatever reason, you’re dreaming of ‘Shen Qingqiu’ again.”

“Apparently,” Luo Binghe snapped.

Undisturbed by Luo Binghe’s less-than-welcome manner, Shen Qingqiu brought a finger to touch his chin in deep thought.

“Did the last dream…” For some reason, Shen Qingqiu looked to the side, as if he were being shy. “… not satisfy you?”

Luo Binghe was speechless.

“I mean, if you’re dreaming of me again,” Shen Qingqiu pointed out, “then clearly the scenario was lacking in some way. Was it over too quickly? Should I have stretched things out? Built up the tension for a proper climax?”

“Stop talking,” Luo Binghe said.

Cowed, Shen Qingqiu turned his eyes upon the book in his hands instead. He flipped the pages, as if he were reading, but Luo Binghe knew through his grasp of the fabric of this dream-within-a-dream that the book was filled with nothing but incomprehensible text-like glyphs.

So this Shen Qingqiu had a thin face, too.

“That’s it?” Luo Binghe demanded. “You’re going to just stand there quietly? Look at me!”

“What do you want me to do?!” Shen Qingqiu yelled, suddenly. “You don’t want me to talk, you don’t want me to be silent—”

Shen Qingqiu slammed his book shut. In the quiet classroom, it echoed like a great thunderclap.

Luo Binghe flinched at the sound.

He hadn’t meant to.

But that small, detestable, weak part of himself—

“Oh,” Shen Qingqiu said softly.

Was that pity, in his voice?

No. No, this was worse than anything else Luo Binghe could have dreamed up for himself.

Shen Qingqiu reached out with a trembling hand.

“Get away,” Luo Binghe snarled. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare—” talk to me with that tone in your voice, don’t you—

“You’re bleeding,” Shen Qingqiu said.

Luo Binghe looked down at himself.

His white disciple robes were soaked in a terrible red. Crimson bloomed across the white like spider lilies in snow. A cavity appeared in his sternum, now, and Luo Binghe felt the dull pain in his chest that was the result of extreme pain numbed by shock and the rush of combat—of survival.

“I’m looking at you,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Like you asked me to. And you’re bleeding. Will you let me help?”

Luo Binghe didn’t move. But the dream itself had betrayed him; while he had been sitting in the back corner of the room, he now found himself in the front row, at a desk that was fresh and new, instead of one that could barely stand, and that should have been replaced long ago. There was no longer the safety of distance between the two of them; he could not hide from Shen Qingqiu’s reach now.

“Please,” Shen Qingqiu said.

Luo Binghe didn’t move as Shen Qingqiu stepped closer, cautious step by cautious step, like he was trying not to spook a beast. He allowed Shen Qingqiu to carefully remove his ruined outer layer, and then the inner ones, until Luo Binghe’s wound stood exposed to the crisp mountain air of Qing Jing Peak. At some point, a set of first-aid supplies had appeared at their side. Luo Binghe didn’t know which of them had summoned such a thing into this dream.

“It hurts,” was all Luo Binghe could say.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It really hurts.”

Shen Qingqiu shushed him gently. With a warm, wet rag, he began to clean around the gaping wound. For some reason, he began to talk as he did so. “The Bloodbone Boar, was it?”

Not trusting his own voice, Luo Binghe nodded.

Shen Qingqiu made some kind of sympathetic noise. “A tricky monster, for sure. Strong, quick, and massive—and yet, not above employing tactics like feinting and playing dead, in order to get its target within goring range.”

Luo Binghe knew this. Now, anyway.

“But what you might not know is that if you can follow one back to its den undetected, it will lead you straight to those rare parts of the abyss where the Spiritual Golden Truffle grows,” Shen Qingqiu continued. “If you can get one, it will boost your cultivation.”

It was perhaps a bad idea to listen to what could be a really bizarre fragment of his subconscious about mysterious substances he should go about consuming, but Luo Binghe was beyond caring about such things. “How am I supposed to follow one of those beasts without attracting its attention?”

“The fumes given off by a burning Deepcavern Salamander will intoxicate it,” Shen Qingqiu continued. “Burn one, and the Bloodbone Boar will not only have its senses dulled, it will instinctively seek out shelter.”

“Those salamanders are the only food I have now,” Luo Binghe pointed out.

“Burn the bones, then,” Shen Qingqiu suggested.

“I eat even the bones.”

“You’ll get truffles many times over. It’s a good trade. It only makes sense to—”

“Listen to a fragment of my imagination? Telling me to give up my only hope of survival for a pipe dream?” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu bit his lip.

“I’ll do it,” Luo Binghe said anyway. “Maybe I have gone mad, after all.”

“… It’ll be worth it,” Shen Qingqiu said, but he no longer sounded so assertive.

They fell into a silence.

Shen Qingqiu continued to attend to him. The cleaning was done—at least, as much as Shen Qingqiu could manage; a steady trickle of bleeding continued even after he cleaned up Luo Binghe’s skin, but there was nothing to be done about that. Even as Shen Qingqiu began to wrap bandages around his torso, the red soaked through, impossible to hide.

Luo Binghe couldn’t stop himself from letting out a small whimper when Shen Qingqiu pulled the gauze a little too tight around his heart.

“Shit,” Shen Qingqiu said, uncharacteristically. “I’m sorry. Should I loosen the gauze? I—I don’t actually know how to dress a wound this large. Fuck, I—”

“Stop it,” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu’s hand stopped in its tracks.

“Why are you doing this?” Luo Binghe asked.

“I…” Shen Qingqiu swallowed. It seemed his lips had gone dry. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“You had no problem with that for so many years. You delighted in it, even.”

“That wasn’t—”

Shen Qingqiu broke off. He drew his hand back to himself, and stared at it like it had betrayed him.

“I’m sorry,” Shen Qingqiu said again.

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Luo Binghe said. “I want… I want—”

“—You want me to fix it, right?” Shen Qingqiu said. He sighed. “I wish I could. You shouldn’t ever have gone through any of that. Looking at you now, I… wish your story had gone differently. I wish I could erase all of that from your history.”

For some reason, Luo Binghe found himself incensed.

“How dare you,” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu looked at him again. He seemed afraid.

“You don’t get to take it back like nothing happened,” Luo Binghe said. “I’m here. Me! I went through that, and I’m still here.”

Having nothing else to say, Shen Qingqiu went back to bandaging Luo Binghe’s bloodsoaked skin. But the dream wound didn’t stop hurting. If anything, it started bleeding even more.

And now his head hurt, too.

Luo Binghe didn’t protest it when Shen Qingqiu’s sleeve wiped the tears that started to stream out of his eyes.

“You’re right,” Shen Qingqiu said. “I’m sorry. I won’t talk about the past anymore. Like you said, we can’t change it. But…” He licked his lips. “We can talk about what the future has in store for you.”

“A drawn-out, lonely death, no doubt,” Luo Binghe said.

“No,” Shen Qingqiu replied. “You will be greater than you ever imagined. You will stand at the top of the world.”

Luo Binghe scoffed, even as it hurt the wound in his chest.

“Really,” Shen Qingqiu said. “The road might not be easy, but the realms will fall at your feet. Any riches you see will be yours for the taking. Women everywhere will fall over themselves in their rush to let you claim them.”

For the second time in this dream, Luo Binghe flinched.

He thought of a futile quest for a lotus, and a girl who was close to death—

Watching his reaction, Shen Qingqiu paused. He stopped where he was bandaging Luo Binghe’s chest. “Did I touch a sore spot?”

“I don’t want—that,” Luo Binghe said.

“Is the idea scary?” Shen Qingqiu said. “But you don’t need to fear the future. There will come a day where you’ll never again be without a companion.”

“Stop it.”

“The relationships you form from here on out will be nothing like what you’ve known up till now,” Shen Qingqiu continued. “You’re smart. You’ll grow peerlessly powerful. You’ll never be at the mercy of someone like me again. You won’t ever have to be alone—”

“Shut up!”

Every painful breath Luo Binghe took rattled in his broken chest. He wanted to scream. He wanted to put his hands around Shen Qingqiu’s throat, cut him off from saying anything else.

He seized that throat.

He knocked over a desk, and pushed Shen Qingqiu to the classroom floor, and relished the feeling as Shen Qingqiu’s body slammed into the wood and shattered it. But Shen Qingqiu didn’t put up any fight at all. It was like running with all your might straight into a stone wall only to find it was made of paper, and on the other side—an open cliff, a trap—

It felt like freefall.

Luo Binghe’s nails—no, claws—dug into the skin of Shen Qingqiu’s neck. Where they touched, blood began to bead up, and once the flow started, nothing could stem it.

“Just like that,” Shen Qingqiu whispered. “I’ll be powerless before you.”

“Shut up, shut up—”

It’s okay, Shen Qingqiu’s lips mouthed, even as his breath failed to escape them. You’ll be alright. You’ll be alright. You’ll be alright.

The next time they met, Shen Qingqiu once again waited for Luo Binghe to speak first.

“You were right about using the salamanders as bait,” Luo Binghe said. “I found the Spiritual Golden Truffles where you said they were.”

Shen Qingqiu blinked, twice. “Well!” he said, looking half like he wanted to preen, and half like he didn’t quite know how to continue their interaction after the way their last meeting ended. “Did it help?”

Luo Binghe only shrugged.

“What does that mean?” Shen Qingqiu asked, mystified. “You’re supposed to have gotten a boost to your cultivation.”

“I suppose I have.”

“Suppose?” Shen Qingqiu frowned. “You should have doubled your strength, at minimum. Your spiritual reserves should have grown by leaps and bounds, to say nothing of your demonic reserves. You should have—”

Shen Qingqiu did not get to say what else Luo Binghe should or should not have or be, as Luo Binghe grabbed him by the neck in a chokehold, and raised him off the ground.

“I’m doing well enough,” Luo Binghe said.

“Oh,” Shen Qingqiu said faintly.

Luo Binghe released him, simply letting him fall. He watched as Shen Qingqiu rubbed his neck, and then slowly made his way back onto his feet.

Neither said anything for a moment.

“That’s it?” Shen Qingqiu asked.

“I have to wonder what Shizun expects of me,” Luo Binghe said icily.

Shen Qingqiu looked confused.

“But you’re stronger,” he said. “It might be tough, still, but it should be easier now to get by in the Abyss, at the very least. Isn’t that worth something?”

“When I first fell down here, a Landwhale swallowed me whole.”

“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu said, impatiently nodding. “The Star-marked Landwhale, known for its massive jaws, but unusually weak digestive system. But you’ll find that they’re no match for you now. You could defeat an endless number of them, easy as breathing. In fact, you must already have, in your travels. Isn’t that so?”

‘Travels’. What a way to put Luo Binghe’s traipsing through the Abyss.

“I wish it had ended there,” Luo Binghe said quietly. “At that first one.”

Shen Qingqiu went white.

“Worth, you say?” Luo Binghe found it in himself to laugh. “What worth? You speak to me of worth. You dare to speak to me of nonsensical dreams never to come true. Yet I continue to wander around the Abyss uselessly, trying and failing to find a way out. I still have no future. No hope of leaving this hell. What else can I conclude other than that you seek only to prolong my suffering?”

Tears began to stream down his face, but Luo Binghe made no move to wipe them away.

“Would that it could all end quickly,” he finished.

Shen Qingqiu looked horrified. “You can’t say that.”

“I can’t?” Luo Binghe asked. “Are you going to stop me?”

“It—it looks dark right now, I know,” Shen Qingqiu said. “But it doesn’t end here. The world is waiting for you. No—the world can’t go on without you.”

Luo Binghe looked at him flatly.

“I’m serious!” Shen Qingqiu said. “I—I’m not explaining it well. I know. But—”

“What’s out there for me?”

Shen Qingqiu looked flustered. The look was almost comical, on him. “I told you before—um, what’d I say—riches! Power. And, ah, women. What else—”

Luo Binghe turned, and began to walk away.

“Wait!”

He stopped.

In the first place, this was a dream. If Luo Binghe really didn’t want to engage, he could have woken himself up. Walking away was only for show.

Well. Luo Binghe wasn’t sure why he stayed in this dream, either.

But Shen Qingqiu had sounded genuinely panicked.

“You can’t stay down here forever,” he said.

“There’s nothing waiting for me up there,” Luo Binghe said. “Nothing, and no one.”

“That’s not true! What about—” Shen Qingqiu scrambled to complete his sentence. “What about Ning Yingying?”

“What about her?”

“She’s your childhood sweetheart.” Shen QIngqiu hesitated. “… Isn’t she?”

Luo Binghe turned back around to fix Shen Qingqiu with a scathing look. “Was that what you imagined every time you whipped me for daring to talk to her in your presence?”

Shen Qingqiu paled. “No, that wasn’t—look,” he said. “She’s crying for you up there. I know she is.”

“If she cared for me,” Luo Binghe began. “If she ever really did, that is. She’d have recognised that all she brought me was pain, and stayed away.”

Shen Qingqiu bit his lip.

“You see now?” Luo Binghe said. “Go. Leave me be. Never help me again.”

The silence stretched out.

Luo Binghe let it. A small part of him wondered if Shen Qingqiu would have some final riposte. Some last ditch attempt to appeal to him, to…

To achieve what?

Maybe Shen Qingqiu was just some illusion inserted into his psyche by the Abyss. Some power beyond his comprehension delighted in his pain, and sought to extend it for its own entertainment, and so brought him this. ‘Shen Qingqiu’.

It didn’t bear thinking about how many humans Luo Binghe had witnessed pull such schemes in his life. The children of his mother’s employers, who threw scraps to the younger servants to watch them fight. The other disciples on Qing Jing, led by Ming Fan, who’d feign pleasantries in front of Ning Yingying only to sabotage him later, after he’d allowed himself to believe that they might have tired of bullying him—

If Shen Qingqiu was like those illusions—if that was all that his presence amounted to…

Then the sooner Luo Binghe ignored him, the sooner his pain would end.

Luo Binghe closed his eyes. He prepared to unravel the dream, mentally reaching out to the threads of pseudoreality that made it up, and—

“I understand now why I’m Shen Qingqiu,” the man said. “Why I have to be Shen Qingqiu.”

Luo Binghe opened his eyes.

Shen Qingqiu looked back at him with a strangely hollow expression, like some light in him had been smothered—and then his face twisted.

“Are you going to die in this godforsaken hole, all alone?” Shen Qingqiu sneered. “That’s all I ever expected from something like you.”

Luo Binghe went straight for Shen Qingqiu’s eyes.

He swiped viciously with claws extended, overcome by an emotion he barely recognised in himself. But Shen Qingqiu didn’t stand idly in place this time. He dodged effortlessly, robes flowing with immortal grace; his eyes were impassive, as if Luo Binghe’s wretched form had never once stained his line of sight.

In this moment, Luo Binghe forgot that this was a dream.

Shen Qingqiu…! Shen Qingqiu!

Luo Binghe lunged again, wild and animalistic. But his claws failed to find their target, and he tumbled over into a disgraceful, uncoordinated mess on the ground.

He scrambled up, hissing. Shen Qingqiu was still there. Shen Qingqiu still taunted him with his pristine presence.

“Not a scratch,” Shen Qingqiu observed of himself. “Is snarling at me all you can manage? I suppose this is the nature of the insurmountable gap between man and beast.”

Red coloured Luo Binghe’s entire field of vision.

His ears rang. He couldn’t make out if Shen Qingqiu continued to say anything. It took him a few minutes to realise that the sound blocking out everything else was that of his own screaming voice.

Again and again did Luo Binghe go after Shen Qingqiu. Again and again, Shen Qingqiu slipped away. Even as Luo Binghe recognised that this raging feeling flowing throughout his body was working against him, he couldn’t stop it. And yet!

When Luo Binghe fell for the last time, he felt exhaustion and aching in every inch of his body. It was like his body was made out of lead. He’d finally found energy to get up and fight, and yet this was the outcome.

Shen Qingqiu walked closer. He kicked Luo Binghe’s prone body lightly, as if it were already a corpse, and he was merely checking to see if it was alive.

“Is that all?”

A callous disappointment coloured Shen Qingqiu’s voice.

Luo Binghe murmured something in response.

“Did you say something?” Shen Qingqiu scoffed. “It was as if a fly was buzzing in my ear.”

“I said no!”

With a final burst of spite, Luo Binghe grabbed Shen Qingqiu by the legs, and dragged him to his level.

They tumbled down together, a tangle of limbs.

Luo Binghe fought dirty now. He wrenched at Shen Qingqiu’s hair, bit at his robes, clawed his flesh apart. He kicked blindly. The blood pounding in his ears made it so that he couldn’t tell if Shen Qingqiu was screaming, even as he wrestled him down with an undignified, bestial fervour.

If Luo Binghe couldn’t rise up—he could drag Shen Qingqiu down.

Finally noticing that Shen Qingqiu hadn’t moved for a bit, Luo Binghe took a breather, and looked at what was beneath him.

Shen Qingqiu was lying prone between his legs, flat on his back. Gashes covered his entire body, and the pieces of fabric that barely covered him could no longer be called clothes. His breaths came wet and ragged as he spat up blood, and bile, from his throat.

Luo Binghe caressed his cheek.

“If I’m a beast,” Luo Binghe said, “what does that make you, who couldn’t overcome me?”

Shen Qingqiu laughed, even as he wiped blood from his mouth. “Good,” he said. “But I think you can do better.”

Luo Binghe drove a clawed hand into Shen Qingqiu’s chest in white-hot fury.

Blood spurted out, hot and unceasing. Flesh parted around his filthy hands. He felt around in Shen Qingqiu’s chest until he found what he was looking for: a heart, this vile, pulsating thing, retaining none of Shen Qingqiu’s grace. He clutched it vindictively in an iron grip.

“Not enough?” Luo Binghe snarled. “I have your life in my hands!”

With the inhuman endurance of an immortal, Shen Qingqiu persevered.

But Luo Binghe could never have expected what he would say next.

“Hold on… to that feeling,” Shen Qingqiu said.

“… Shizun?”

“Come on now. It’s not the time… to grow soft,” Shen Qingqiu chided, each word coming out painfully slowly. “You know what to do next, don’t you? … Squeeze. Do it quickly, or… drag it out. It’s up to you. But… you have to do it.” He laughed weakly, but it sounded more like he was choking. “Though… I would prefer… you were quick about it.”

As if on command, Luo Binghe’s fingers slowly started curling in upon themselves. Shen Qingqiu’s heart shuddered under his touch as it struggled to keep its rhythm, but Luo Binghe would not, could not, let up.

Shen Qingqiu winced quietly.

“You won’t scream?” Luo Binghe asked. “Let me hear you! Do you no longer have the energy?!”

Shen Qingqiu’s head listed to one side, and his eyes were struggling to remain clear, but even so, he clung on to consciousness.

“Don’t… let go,” Shen Qingqiu said. “No matter what.”

Luo Binghe continued to squeeze the heart in his palm.

“Binghe, remember this,” Shen Qingqiu said, as his breath grew ever more laboured. “Xin Mo. If you wish… to leave this place… you must find Xin Mo.”

“Shizun?” Luo Binghe could not still his trembling. “What are you saying?”

But Luo Binghe’s claws cut into the chambers of Shen Qingqiu’s heart before the latter could answer. Life flowed out, liquid. Dream matter dispersed, liquid. The world fell apart, liquid. Luo Binghe, himself—

---

“Xin Mo?” Meng Mo said, with a grimace. “You’d best forget about it, boy.”

“Xin Mo might be our only way out of here, Shifu,” Luo Binghe said. “What do you know of it?”

“Oh, it’s only the most notorious, mind-corrupting, soul-destroying sword known to all the realms—Wait, why are you asking me this?” Meng Mo asked suspiciously. “If you’re suggesting we seek Xin Mo, don’t you already know what it does?”

Luo Binghe stayed silent.

“Another tip from that ‘Shen Qingqiu’ hallucination of yours?” Meng Mo dragged a hand down his face. “The least he could do is explain the death trap he’s leading you into.”

“He’s not my hallucination. He’s not ‘my’ anything.”

“Right. Well—” Meng Mo pinched his brow. “It’s a sword known for its powers to tear portals into space, among other things. There’s legends about its wielders, and it’s rumoured to have ended up in the Endless Abyss—but in both of our interests, I refuse to say anything else about that accursed thing. In the thousand-to-one chance you actually get your hands on it, it’s going to drive you insane and torture you endlessly. Not necessarily in that order.”

“So it is a way out.”

“You don’t listen to a single thing your shifu says, do you?”

Luo Binghe glared stubbornly.

“Get stronger,” Meng Mo said, sighing. “Strengthen your body, your cultivation, your psyche. And then I’ll tell you what I know about it.”

“Is that a promise, Shifu?”

“If you get strong enough,” Meng Mo sneered, “you won’t need to wait for me to promise you anything. You’ll force it out of me. That’s what it really means to be strong.”

---

“Are you trying to aid me, or ruin me?” Luo Binghe asked. “What is Xin Mo, really?”

Shen Qingqiu lazily flicked a fan open. “To think this poor excuse of a student would come crawling back to me for answers. Did Meng Mo not tell you what you needed to know?”

Luo Binghe gritted his teeth. “He called it a death trap.”

“He’s not wrong.”

“So you tricked me!”

Luo Binghe punctuated his cry with a lunge, but it seemed Shen Qingqiu had anticipated this course of action, because he swiftly threw out a spiritual blast in retaliation, forcing Luo Binghe to throw himself violently to one side to avoid it.

He glared daggers at Shen Qingqiu as he recovered.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Do you have tofu for brains? Did you think I would never fight back?”

“Get out of my head!” Luo Binghe screamed.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Without me, where would you be?”

Luo Binghe howled wordlessly, all fury and frustration and bitterness.

They traded more blows, neither backing down, neither losing ground. But the steady rhythm of the fight told Luo Binghe nothing about why ‘Shen Qingqiu’ was here to taunt him, in the privacy of his own dreams. If anything, it was almost… a simple spar. Like the kind that other, less alone disciples of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect would have, between each other.

Simply put, Shen Qingqiu wasn’t fighting like he cared about the outcome, and it infuriated Luo Binghe to no end.

“Why are you even here?!” Luo Binghe cried.

“You wanted to know more about Xin Mo, didn’t you?” Shen Qingqiu said. “If anything, you called me.”

…

Shen Qingqiu stepped back, putting some distance between them.

“… To answer your initial question,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Xin Mo is a blade that has a will of its own. It will grant you unparalleled power, but if you seek to claim it, you must be able to impose your own will over it.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Look at yourself,” Shen Qingqiu said derisively. “If you can’t even win against me, what hope do you have of claiming Xin Mo?”

At this, Luo Binghe charged Shen Qingqiu, with all of his strength—

But Shen Qingqiu, once again, proved himself superior.

With a final, decisive strike to the abdomen, he disabled Luo Binghe in one fell swoop, and it was over.

Luo Binghe collapsed at last.

That should have been the end of that, but Shen Qingqiu caught him, and gently laid him on the ground. The vitriol had evaporated from his expression, all at once; now, he only looked like a truly concerned teacher.

How quickly Shen Qingqiu changed his face.

“Why won’t you let me fall?” Luo Binghe asked, his voice weak.

“Why didn’t you keep fighting?” Shen Qingqiu returned, frustrated. “It wasn’t over.” Despite the tone of his voice, he channeled spiritual energy into Luo Binghe’s bruises. “You’re a Heavenly Demon. You can withstand much more than this.”

Luo Binghe wanted to raise his voice, but he lacked the energy. “Should I have to? Just because I’m a Heavenly Demon?”

“That’s not what I mean. You could have made me pay for that strike. I left myself open all over.” Shen Qingqiu wiped Luo Binghe’s brow, so gentle it burned. “You’re so much stronger than me, so why…?”

Why?

Why indeed.

“Xin Mo will be the end of me, anyway,” Luo Binghe said.

“Xin Mo is destined to be yours!” Shen Qingqiu looked at him, incredulously. “It might as well have your name on it! That’s how certain fate is!”

“But I can’t even defeat you.”

“That’s not true!” Shen Qingqiu yelled. He leaned back, and bit his lip. “Why…? Where did I go wrong? Why can’t you hold your anger?”

“Sorry, Shizun,” Luo Binghe said.

“Don’t call me that now,” Shen Qingqiu said, pained. “I’m scum. I need to be destroyed. I thought you understood that. I wanted that grudge to give you strength.”

“This disciple is foolish.”

“I thought I told you to hold on to that feeling…!”

Luo Binghe had never been able to control his heart. He couldn’t make it let go of the hope that things would get better, before, and he couldn’t make it hold on to rage against the man who spat on that hope at every opportunity.

“Maybe you should just focus on improving your physical condition, for the time being,” Shen Qingqiu said. “You’re at the Weavers’ Tears right now, aren’t you? That giant criss-cross network of waterways?”

Luo Binghe didn’t bother asking how Shen Qingqiu knew. “Yes.”

“When you pass by the Falls of Forsaken Fortunes—you’ll know it when you see the flowing mercury—take a detour to see the Pool of Molten Crystal. It’s not a good name, the crystals in there are just… normal, solid crystals—anyway, you’ll want to retrieve the Moonlight Eclipse Pearl at its centre.” Shen Qingqiu looked awkwardly at Luo Binghe, and continued when he said nothing. “Another bad name. Should have just called it the Full Moon Pearl…”

“And then?”

“Place it under your tongue as you rest. It will be good for your cultivation.”

Shen Qingqiu had perked up when he spoke. Shen Qingqiu looked so hopeful at his meagre two-word reply. As if he actually cared.

Luo Binghe closed his eyes.

“Oh, Binghe. Don’t cry,” Shen Qingqiu said.

Luo Binghe, who’d sworn never to cry again on the day he entered Qing Jing Peak, cried for only the second time since then. And Shen Qingqiu, who was the reason Luo Binghe swore that vow in the first place, held him as he did, in a way he hadn’t been held since his mother had passed.

“Was I too harsh, when I was fighting you?” Shen Qingqiu asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to reach you.”

“Don’t go,” Luo Binghe said. “Whatever—whoever you are. Stay here with me. Forever.”

“I can’t do that,” Shen Qingqiu said. “This is just a dream. You know that. … None of this is for real. For me, or for you.”

“I’ll never ask for anything else!”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes looked red, too. “You’ll have everything, one day. Just…”

“… Just not this,” Luo Binghe finished.

Of course.

Why had he ever expected any other answer?

Shen Qingqiu began to look desperate. “You’ll have so much more!”

So they were back to this.

Luo Binghe laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

Luo Binghe kept laughing as he reached gently to cup Shen Qingqiu’s porcelain cheeks in his hands, and he didn’t stop, even as he swiftly snapped Shizun’s neck in a single, clean twist.

---

After he obtained the lunar-white Pearl, Luo Binghe once again asked Meng Mo about Xin Mo.

“I’m stronger now,” Luo Binghe said. “You can’t deny that.”

Meng Mo himself had been worn down by the Abyss, over the haze of days the both of them had spent here together, unable to find a natural exit. It was obvious in the way his tone had had its rough edges filed off, and the way he’d all but stopped ribbing him for his moments of weakness. For whatever it was worth.

So when Luo Binghe broached the topic of Xin Mo once more, Meng Mo only sighed very deeply.

“I told you to get stronger,” Meng Mo said. “Your body, your cultivation, your psyche.”

“And have I not already done so?” Luo Binghe challenged.

“It’s the last of those that I’m worried about,” Meng Mo said. “Boy. If you find Xin Mo, it will challenge you. It will seek to dominate you, and use you. All of its past wielders, bar none, succumbed to its call eventually.”

“So I hear,” Luo Binghe said. “It comes down to a matter of wills, does it not?”

“You put it so simply, but do you really understand?”

“What’s there to understand?” Luo Binghe’s tone grew heated. “Either I die wandering here, or I die to the sword. What’s the difference?”

“That’s exactly my point, boy!” Meng Mo bellowed. “Do you think that that kind of attitude is enough to withstand Xin Mo’s influence? Have you just decided to walk to your own execution?”

“Careful, now,” Luo Binghe said. “I might actually begin to think you cared, Shifu.”

“—Have you given a single thought to what you want?”

Meng Mo’s unexpected question stopped Luo Binghe’s thoughts in their mental tracks.

“Have you thought about it? Where you go once you’ll escape? If you want glory, or wealth, or revenge, or all of it? Anything? Pick whatever you want—but pick!”

Luo Binghe stood at a loss for words.

“Do you even have the semblance of an answer?” Meng Mo continued. “By the heavens, this is painful to watch. If you don’t have an answer of your own, Xin Mo will gladly provide its own for you. And you won’t want to know where that leads.”

“What does it matter?” Luo Binghe asked.

“Please, boy,” Meng Mo asked. He sounded tired. “All I’m asking is that you think about it.”

But Luo Binghe was anything but receptive to Meng Mo’s plea.

Meng Mo wasn’t the one getting cut up, or being sprayed by acid, or losing a limb to a hungry monster, or enduring the pain of regeneration from said limb loss. Meng Mo wasn’t the one putting his life on the line every day. Meng Mo got to turn away from reality—and he had the gall to lecture Luo Binghe about wanting an escape from it all?

This was a dream realm. Luo Binghe easily summoned a sword to his hand. It was black, and formless, and really only bore a faint resemblance to an actual blade—but it would be enough.

If only he’d thought of this earlier.

“Boy. What are you doing?” Meng Mo said warily.

Luo Binghe stabbed him in the foot.

Meng Mo let out a sharp cry.

Luo Binghe was rather skilled at dream manipulation, these days. He easily subverted Meng Mo’s efforts to reform the dream sword into something harmless. He stopped Meng Mo from changing his own form into that of a formless fog, as easily as thinking. No escape would be allowed.

Meng Mo would finally be forced to bear a tiny fraction of the pain Luo Binghe himself had taken, through these long, long months.

“The last time we talked about Xin Mo, you told me what it meant to be strong,” Luo Binghe reflected.

Meng Mo was aghast. “Everything I’m saying is for your own good!”

But Luo Binghe did not care. He had only to force out the answer he wanted.

It was so simple.

“Where is Xin Mo?” Luo Binghe asked. “Tell me everything you know.”

Meng Mo looked at him with a grudging respect, and—after a long, tense pause—finally began to speak.

Many months later, Luo Binghe found Xin Mo within the belly of a once-great beast.

It hadn’t been easy. The beast whose belly contained Xin Mo had, of course, not gone down without a fight, and it had taken Luo Binghe the better part of three days and nights to take it down. He had had to land the final blow from within the beast, too, and right now he was picking out bits of viscera from his hair and claws. It was a seemingly endless process.

All the while, Xin Mo stood about a mere twenty paces from him.

It would be all over soon. If what Meng Mo had told him was right, once Luo Binghe picked the blade up, he’d be able to slice a hole in space leading out of the Abyss, just like that. Where he was going to end up was less clear, but—there was nowhere to go, but up.

It was what he’d been working towards all this time.

Still, Luo Binghe had not yet closed that twenty-pace distance.

Why hadn’t he already taken the final step?

Move, Luo Binghe urged himself. Do you want to get out of here, or are you just going to lay down and die?

But before he could make a move, a rumble shook the earth.

Luo Binghe froze in place. He watched for a long while in silence, out of an abundance of caution, but nothing else happened—until he heard a nostalgic, wispy voice begin to speak.

“Binghe,” the voice said. “My heart. Is that you?”

Luo Binghe blinked.

A figure he had not seen in a very long time greeted him: that of a hunched old woman, hair grey and coarse in a way that an immortal’s would never be.

He knew it couldn’t be her, and yet—

“Mama,” he said.

“Binghe,” his mother called again. Her humble robes were exactly as Luo Binghe remembered, down to every last fraying patch and stain. “My old eyes are failing. Won’t you come closer, so I can see you?”

Luo Binghe hurriedly wiped what was left of the monster viscera on his hands onto what remained of his robes. “I’m filthy, mama,” he said.

“That’s alright,” she said. “It’s nothing a dip in the river can’t fix.”

Luo Binghe swallowed. “There’s no river here, mama.”

“Why, isn’t it right over there?”

He looked where she gestured, and indeed, a river ran strong where there had been nothing seconds prior. But it wasn’t the Luo River. It was an evil thing, fizzling and hissing and boiling over.

“I’ll clean myself later, mama,” Luo Binghe said.

“What are you afraid of, silly boy?” his mother said. She laughed softly. “Oh, you wilful child.”

The feeling of guts under his nailbeds just wouldn’t go away. “I…”

The sound of a cough interrupted his thoughts.

His mother, already hunched, curled up on herself. Her shoulders began to shake.

“Mama,” Luo Binghe said, alarmed.

“I’m alright, child,” his mother said, when she was clearly anything but. “Won’t you come closer?”

But he couldn’t. He—he wasn’t ready.

“Hold on, Mama,” Luo Binghe said. “I—I’ll get you some food. Medicine. You should sit down first, get some rest—”

“Sit with me,” Mama said.

“I can’t, Mama, I can’t!”

These last words came out in a yell. Mama flinched visibly, and Luo Binghe felt as if he’d been slapped in the face.

“Why not?” she asked, barely audible.

“I…”

Luo Binghe looked at his hands, dyed in red as they were.

HIs mother had been the first and only person in his life to truly care for him. To feed him, to clothe him, to pick him out of the gutter where he had been fighting dogs for scraps. Mama had been the one to teach him manners, and language, and how to be a human being.

But now he had claws. He had fangs. Without a surface of reflection, he couldn’t see it, but Luo Binghe knew his eyes were glowing red at that very moment. Not to mention—the cursed brand on his brow was shedding its own share of light.

That was already bad enough on its own, but there was more. Within this Endless Abyss, Luo Binghe had been beaten within an inch of his life, over and over again. He’d lost so many body parts, and had had to regenerate them from scratch, each and every time. How much of him could even be said to be physically the same as the boy Mama once called her son?

How could Luo Binghe even think of approaching his mother when he was now the kind of monster in the night that she once warned him about? How could he touch his mother with hands like these?

If she knew him for who he really was—

Mama coughed again, and this time it was as if her lungs were going to give. Luo Binghe watched, paralysed, as the shudders wracked her body—until, after a particularly rough convulsion, Mama began to fall.

“Mama!”

Luo Binghe ran forward. The syllables in his mouth turned into a wordless scream.

With all the physical power at his disposal, he threw himself forward like the world was ending.

But Mama continued to collapse in slow motion, far away from him.

It should have only been twenty paces, so why was it taking forever to reach her?

It should have only been twenty paces—

Mama’s body hit the ground.

Luo Binghe couldn’t even catch her.

He nearly tripped over himself as he finally reached her side, but it was already… too late. Mama’s eyes were closed, and he could no longer sense her breathing.

“Mama?” Luo Binghe said, his voice trembling.

There was no response.

Mind blank, he lifted his mother’s body up, and cradled her head as gently as he could—but the instant his hand touched her cold skin, Luo Binghe found himself holding something very different instead.

He blinked, and he was kneeling in front of a blade, its hilt firmly in his hand.

On top of that—he couldn’t let go.

Luo Binghe had Xin Mo firmly in his grasp—or was it that he was in Xin Mo’s clutches?

There was no escape.

Black qi billowed out of the blade, and everything went dark.

---

When Luo Binghe next came to, the first thing he saw was Shen Qingqiu.

They were standing opposite each other in the middle of a clearing. The sounds of fierce roars and anguished wails echoed in the distance, but there was relative quiet in their immediate vicinity.

“Shizun,” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu’s lip curled. “Who said a beast like you had the right to speak to me?”

Luo Binghe’s eyes widened. “This discipl—”

But Shen Qingqiu didn’t wait for him to finish.

He sent a spiritual blast in Luo Binghe’s direction. Unprepared, Luo Binghe fell backwards, landing on his back.

Above, the sight of the sky greeted him. The stars twinkled coldly, and marvellously; it was the beauty of a heaven that was infinitely separated from the ugliness of the mortal world.

Moonlight illuminated Shen Qingqiu’s silhouette.

Luo Binghe coughed as he scrambled up, having had the wind knocked out of him by the earlier blow. “Shizun, why—”

“Are you a fool?” Shen Qingqiu interrupted. “What else does a righteous cultivator do when faced with something like you?”

Luo Binghe stared back blankly.

Shen Qingqiu’s face now fully bore a cruel smile. “You were lying to this master, all along.”

Something on his brow burned with heat. “Sh-Shizun,” Luo Binghe said. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” Shen Qingqiu said dismissively. “Words are meant for man, not beast. No wonder you couldn’t make anything of yourself in my classes. No wonder you weren’t capable of correctly following a single instruction.”

He pointed a damning finger at Luo Binghe.

“You,” Shen Qingqiu declared, “are a demon.”

Luo Binghe brought a hand up to his forehead, and only then noticed the waves of demonic qi openly roiling off of his body.

“You deceived us all, for a time,” Shen Qingqiu said, looking more delighted than reprimanding.

“No, I—”

“Lying to your shizun, your martial siblings, your sect—did you think you could pretend to be human forever?”

“This disciple wasn’t pretending—!”

But Shen Qingqiu wasn’t angry, exactly. It wasn’t an apology he wanted.

To Shen Qingqiu, this was an opportunity. To be rid of Luo Binghe, once and for all, like he’d wanted for years, and years, maybe even since Luo Binghe greeted him that first time to an upturned cup of tea.

And now, Luo Binghe had just had the demonic part of himself openly revealed to Shen Qingqiu—who would have every excuse to not only expel him, but even kill him on the spot. He wouldn’t even be judged wrong for it. The logic of the world demanded that Luo Binghe couldn’t be suffered to exist.

The realisation had Luo Binghe feeling like he’d fallen into the Luo River on the shortest night of the year.

The dream Luo Binghe once had, the dream that he carried on his small back which frequently had its skin split open to whippings, the dream of making his mother proud—

That ended here.

Luo Binghe opened and closed his mouth, but he had nothing to say.

“Quiet, are you?” Shen Qingqiu said. “Looks like you managed to learn at least that much.”

Luo Binghe tried to get up, but whatever had happened to his demonic side, it wasn’t under his control at all; his qi was going haywire after that spiritual blast, and he lacked even the most basic physical coordination. As he was then, he doubted he could manage even the simplest exercises he used to do under Meng Mo’s tutelage.

A heat crept up at his back.

There was an ugly wound in the ground behind Luo Binghe letting out , just waiting to swallow him up. And judging by the way Shen Qingqiu was coming closer, he had the same idea.

Get up. Get up now!

But no matter how Luo Binghe spurred himself on, weakness would not release its iron grip on him. He remained on the ground, paralysed, as Shen Qingqiu’s gleeful visage stepped closer.

Luo Binghe had never seen Shen Qingqiu quite like this.

The man was no longer hiding behind the veneer of respectability—because he didn’t have to.

Because this was to be Luo Binghe’s end.

Luo Binghe scrunched his eyes shut—

“What are you doing?!”

—only to open them wide in shock when a new voice entered the fray.

No. Not a new voice. Shen Qingqiu’s voice.

The Shen Qingqiu who’d been walking towards him all this time was now frozen, bizarrely, his foot still half-hovering over the ground as if time itself had stopped. Actually, that seemed to be exactly what was happening; the surrounding trees, which had been swaying in the wind, were just as still, and the cries of anguish that had been accompanying them the whole time were now silenced.

The only thing that remained moving in this eerily stationary scene was—

A different Shen Qingqiu?

Luo Binghe stared as the second Shen Qingqiu walked up to him. He looked mad.

“Why are you letting Xin Mo overwhelm you?” Shen Qingqiu-the-second said. “This isn’t a joke! If you let it kill you here, you die in real life!”

“Here?”

“In this dream,” Shen Qingqiu said impatiently. He approached Luo Binghe without a second thought, and started channeling spiritual energy into him to correct the imbalance in Luo Binghe’s body. “Do you realise now? All this is in the past. This isn’t real.”

Luo Binghe blinked. “Then why are you healing me?”

Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes.

“Shizun, I’m serious,” Luo Binghe protested, but he only got a light thwack on his forehead for his words.

“Focus,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Do you recall what you set out to do?”

“To claim Xin Mo,” Luo Binghe said.

He blinked as it all came back to him.

Right. He’d made such a big show of being strong in front of Meng Mo, but when the real trial came, he folded almost without a fight?

How utterly shameful.

“Stop beating yourself up, hmm?” Shen Qingqiu chided gently. “If you know the situation you’re in, that’s good. Xin Mo conjures illusions to destabilise you—but you can overcome this.” He gestured vaguely at their surroundings. ”You have overcome this, before.”

A painful sort of heat pricked at the corners of Luo Binghe’s eyes. “No, I haven’t.”

“Binghe?”

“I let him kick me down,” Luo Binghe whispered. “I was too weak. I couldn’t stop him.”

“You got back up,” Shen Qingqiu said.

“But—”

“Luo Binghe!” Shen Qingqiu said, harsh all of a sudden. He softened just as quickly, in regret. “Binghe. You’re a strong young man.”

“Not when you’re here,” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu looked at him helplessly.

“When you’re around, I—I just—” Luo Binghe’s shoulders shook. His heart churned and crumbled. He felt a sudden, violent anger, but even more than that he felt a deep shame. “Why are you back? Why are you here? If you’re not going to stay, why did we meet at all—!”

He tried to leap forward and slash at Shen Qingqiu’s hapless face, but he lacked even the strength to stand, and he ended up falling back down into a disgraceful heap.

Shen Qingqiu quietly moved to sit by his side.

“Why are you kind to me?” Luo Binghe said quietly.

“I… can’t answer that,” Shen Qingqiu said.

“Give me something.”

Give me a reason to believe.

But it didn’t look like Shen Qingqiu was going to provide him with one. The man only sat awkwardly next to him, opening up a fan to cover his face.

What use was sentiment from someone who was only going to leave his side?

Sensing his disappointment, Shen Qingqiu started fidgeting with his fan. “Do you want to kill me again?”

Despite himself, Luo Binghe gave him a flat stare.

“It seemed to do you some good,” Shen Qingqiu said defensively.

Luo Binghe sighed. “Is that your solution to everything?”

“Then… do you want to torture me?”

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Shen Qingqiu said. “It’s not like I enjoy it. Even if this is a dream, the pain is real, you know!”

…

But he was volunteering…?

“This can’t be real,” Luo Binghe muttered to himself. “This must be another part of Xin Mo’s illusions. I can’t really be talking to a version of my shizun who’s a complete village idiot.”

“Hey,” Shen Qingqiu said, offended, and then, “Where did you pick up language like that?”

Disregarding him, Luo Binghe focused on dismantling the version of Jue Di Gorge that Xin Mo had created. The scene, which had already lost time, began to lose space as the trees that made up the dreamscape began to disappear, at first one by one, and then all at once. Colour faded. Light and shadow dulled into each other, becoming a uniform blankness. And at the end of the process, only he and Shen Qingqiu—the kind fool—were left standing with each other, in a nondescript white space.

It was then that Xin Mo showed itself properly.

As if a fog had been cleared, a black sword appeared out of the white, standing upright where its blade was stabbed into the ground.

Once again, Xin Mo awaited him.

Luo Binghe stood up.

“Are you ready?” Shen Qingqiu asked, also rising to his feet.

That was the question, wasn’t it.

Meng Mo had warned of what Xin Mo could do. He spoke of its previous wielders, who’d fallen to illusions and bloodlust, of those who had lost so much of themselves they killed everyone they treasured and didn’t even recognise that they had done so.

Know what you want, was what Meng Mo had emphasised over and over. Or Xin Mo will carve up your mind.

Luo Binghe glanced over at Shen Qingqiu.

Even after all these dreams, he wasn’t sure what Shen Qingqiu really was.

He knew things that Luo Binghe would never have known, that was for sure, so he could not simply have been part of his subconscious, no matter what Meng Mo insisted. At the same time, no matter how Luo Binghe examined the memories in his own mind of their previous encounters, he couldn’t truly sense any foreign entity. A contradiction. And of course, Shen Qingqiu was nowhere to be found outside of these dreams-within-dreams, no matter how much either Meng Mo or Luo Binghe himself searched.

But it wasn’t really important what the nature of Shen Qingqiu’s existence was. It only mattered that he stayed. That he didn’t just appear at the whims of—not Luo Binghe’s whims, not even his own whims, apparently—some sort of fate, and disappear just as quickly.

But Shen Qingqiu was here, in front of him.

Right here, right now, Shen Qingqiu was a part of Luo Binghe’s mind.

Within this dream, Shen Qingqiu could be observed by Luo Binghe. He could talk with Luo Binghe. He could guide Luo Binghe. He could make utterly deranged offers to be Luo Binghe’s personal torture/murder subject for no other reason than it would make Luo Binghe feel better—

He could even love Luo Binghe.

The truth was, Luo Binghe did know what he wanted. He just didn’t think XIn Mo could help him get it, and so he’d wavered, and lashed out, and gotten himself lost in simple illusions of the past.

But if it was true that Xin Mo could carve up his mind—

—and if it was true that Shen Qingqiu was part of his mind—

—then Luo Binghe had his solution, didn’t he?

Was it really possible? Was all this just a flight of fancy, a wish born out of nonsensical wordplay, the thoughts of a child who couldn’t give anything up? An idea Luo Binghe’s heart fled to out of a desperate, ruinous desire?

But you won’t know if you don’t try, right?

The blade taunted him with its presence.

You’re so close. Soon, Shen Qingqiu will be in your hands. You’ll be able to carve him out, pin him down.

Luo Binghe stepped closer.

Remember all those times everyone left you? Remember all those times everyone stepped over you, used you? Remember how powerless you were? That can stop now.

Luo Binghe reached a hand out.

He’ll never escape you. You’ll have the power to make sure of that.

Promise?

Promise.

Luo Binghe drew the blade from where it was stabbed into the ground. Held it up to the sky—

And turned back around to see Shen Qingqiu smiling back at him like a proud, proud fool.

Luo Binghe had Xin Mo in hand now—but what next?

Oh, Binghe, echoed a kind voice. What do you do with a blade? What do you do with any blade?

Right. Of course. What kind of student was he, that he needed to be told this much?

You drive it—

“—home,” Luo Binghe whispered.

“Binghe?” Shen Qingqiu asked.

In one, beautiful strike, Luo Binghe sent Xin Mo’s blade right into the middle of Shen Qingqiu’s chest.

Blood sprayed all over them both. It tasted like warmth.

“Ah—” Shen Qingqiu coughed, loud and wet. “Binghe. That… was sudden.”

Luo Binghe only smiled.

“Binghe?” Shen Qingqiu said, sensing something wrong.

“It was so simple this whole time, Shizun,” Luo Binghe said. “If you won’t stay with me, I simply have to make you.”

“Binghe—” Another cough. “That’s not possible,” Shen Qingqiu said. “I’m not fated to be part of your story—”

So what? Luo Binghe laughed. “Who cares about fate?”

“You need to give up on me. I’m not real!”

But he’s right there. “You’re right here.”

“When the dream ends—”

“But it won’t,” Luo Binghe said. “I’ve mastered the dream arts. I’ll dream while I’m awake, I’ll bring you into the waking world—”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that!”

“It doesn’t matter.” His lips curled, giddy with joy. “You promised. That you’d never leave.”

Shen Qingqiu looked aghast. “I never—” Suddenly, his face went completely white. “Binghe. Did it… promise you… me?”

“What are you talking about, Shizun?” Luo Binghe asked. “It’s just you and me here.”

A real terror flooded Shen Qingqiu’s face.

That’s the most panicked you’ve ever seen him. What a magnificent expression! You must be doing something right.

Indeed. Beautiful. Shen Qingqiu was truly beautiful.

With his free hand, Luo Binghe tore up Shen Qingqiu’s clothes.

“Binghe, wake up,” Shen Qingqiu said. “You can’t lose yourself now!”

“But then you’ll go away,” Luo Binghe said.

Shen Qingqiu gripped Xin Mo’s blade where it was sticking out of him. “Binghe… listen,” he said, his breathing laboured. “Whatever you think you’re getting out of this… you won’t.”

Luo Binghe twisted the blade, and Shen Qingqiu screamed.

Tears were running down his face now. Drool and blood mixed as both escaped the side of his lips.

“Is Binghe… really beyond help?” Shen Qingqiu whispered, almost to himself, even as he kept coughing. “The plot can’t be allowed to derail like this, right? But… what can I do?”

Perhaps Luo Binghe had been a tad too heavy-handed, if Shen Qingqiu had started babbling nonsense like this.

Shen Qingqiu closed his eyes. He released his grip on Xin Mo’s blade, and brought his hand to his chest instead. He seemed to be gathering himself.

“Shizun, don’t resist,” Luo Binghe said. “Do I need to push you down? Don’t you feel sorry for me?”

“I do.” Shen Qingqiu’s eyes drifted open. “I said… I’d let you kill me. Torture me, if you wanted. But…”

Luo Binghe’s expression hardened. “But what?”

“Only…”

Only?

Shen Qingqiu smiled.

“Only… if it’s really you.”

Before Luo Binghe could parse the meaning of this sentence, Shen Qingqiu reached forward, pushing himself further onto Xin Mo, embracing his shoulders—

And a massive wave of spiritual energy swept over the both of them, as if the levees of a great river had broken, and its frigid waters were free to rage through the land, destroying everything in their path.

Shizun had self-detonated.

And now, with no more energy to keep him up, he fell forward into Luo Binghe’s trembling embrace.

Xin Mo slid deeper into him with the movement, like it was seeking a sheath.

“Shizun!”

Luo Binghe’s head had cleared, but his previously still heart began to shake in panic. He froze in place, pinned down by and supporting Shizun’s weight at the same time.

He felt it more than heard it when Shizun let out a tired laugh.

“Have you come back to yourself, now?” Shizun asked. “You know, I didn’t think that would work.”

Xin Mo’s whispers might have retreated for the moment, but Luo Binghe couldn’t hear himself think, let alone whatever Shizun was saying. “Shizun, why? Why would you do that?”

“This is only a dream. Why wouldn’t I, when you were hurting like that?” Shizun reminded him. He twitched in pain. “… It feels real for me right now, though…”

“I didn’t mean to—I just wanted—”

“Hush. First of all…”

Luo Binghe quieted, waiting for Shizun’s next words.

“Do you think… you could pull out…?” Shizun said.

Ah.

Luo Binghe pulled—

But Xin Mo would not let its sheath go.

There was nothing keeping it in, and yet no matter how hard Luo Binghe pulled, it wouldn’t come out.

Instead, an indistinct blackness began seeping out of the blade, and out into Shizun’s body, like some kind of evil rot.

Luo Binghe’s panic accelerated. “Shizun—”

“Somehow, I don’t think I’m coming back from this,” Shizun said quietly. “I think this time… is different.”

“No—Shizun!”

Shizun’s body began to distort, melting into the stab wound, as if it was being pulled in. There was something unnaturally grotesque about the sight; Luo Binghe wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t help but watch what he had wrought.

“Luo Binghe, listen to me,” Shizun said. “I think I know why I could meet you, and why I have to leave now.”

Luo Binghe let out a great sob.

“Shh,” Shizun said. “You see, I met you in the margins of this story. I was brought to you in the space between sentences; the gaps between words. But from here on is where the real story starts. There’s no more space for an ambiguous entity like me to exist.” He raised a hand to Luo Binghe’s cheek, stroked it oh-so-gently. “A borrowed form, a borrowed name… That’s no good for a story like this. A villain needs to only be a villain.”

“Shizun, you’re not making any sense,” Luo Binghe cried.

A wry laugh. “No, I suppose not.”

“But why should you have to leave?”

Shizun sighed. “Because there’s only space for one ■■■ in this story.”

The blackness had eaten away most of Shizun’s body at this point. It was reaching up to his neck. It was almost time.

“No,” Luo Binghe said. “This can’t be time.”

“Binghe…?”

Luo Binghe sought to deny the inevitable.

“It’s not inevitable,” Luo Binghe said.

Shizun gave a weak laugh. “You have to give it up, Binghe.”

He could feel his mind slipping. He could feel Shizun being pulled from him. Toward his Shizun, Luo Binghe felt himself being overtaken by a simple, pure hatred—

“That’s not how I feel at all!”

But the more Luo Binghe struggled, the more Shizun was lost to Xin Mo.

Shizun was already fading into nothing. The black distortion had eaten away the lower half of his face; he could no longer speak. He would never again save Luo Binghe.

All was lost.

No.

“Xin Mo,” Luo Binghe called.

He thought he heard a cruel laugh in the distance. As a response, it would have to suffice.

“Was all of that a lie?” Luo Binghe said. “Was it never possible to carve Shizun out of my mind the way I wished?”

Who knows? Another laugh. Perhaps you never had the will.

Shizun closed his eyes for the last time. There was barely anything of him left.

“It can’t be too late!”

Oh, but it is. Do you even recall his name?

There was no way to keep this Shizun with him. But Luo Binghe had yet to acknowledge this truth.

“—But you remember.”

And so what if I do?

“You have to remember,” Luo Binghe gritted out. “In my place.”

More laughter. And you will force it out of me, one day? Like with Meng Mo? But you won’t even be able to recall that you ever asked this of me.

Luo Binghe erupted with rage. “You—!”

But I’ll do as you say.

Luo Binghe hardly dared to believe his ears. “What?”

I’ll lead you to him. Laughing—it was still laughing, it wouldn’t stop laughing—! And when you meet this Shizun of yours, identical to your first, what will you do to him? Oh, he has taught you so well. I can hardly wait to see.

Luo Binghe opened his eyes wide in horror—

But ■■■ was gone.

The dream began to fall apart, and reality began to slowly fade in in its place.

Xin Mo was his now, sitting obedient in his hand. It had finally yielded to his will; no longer did it resist his grasp.

Here was his salvation.

No more would he have to endure the Endless Abyss. No more would Luo Binghe have to tolerate the pain of powerlessness. Nothing would stand in his way; no one could defy him from here on out.

That was what Luo Binghe wanted. Wasn’t it?

He didn’t feel like he’d forgotten anything. He didn’t feel like he had left something behind… Or someone?

Nevertheless, there was a void in his heart that needed filling.

Luo Binghe slashed a hole in space, and stepped into the darkness—

---

    = System report: pre-production environment deployment =

Integration test for candidate [Shen Yuan] complete.

Candidate response: compatible. 
Protagonist response: within acceptable parameters.
Original universe post-mortem: divergence effectively erased; 
timeline restored to canon parameters. No adverse outcomes 
anticipated.

Pre-checks complete.
All tests passed (69/69).

-------------------------------------------------------------

COMMENTS

> Candidate took too long to die after self-detonation; the
  memory leak was getting out of hand. Amend the expiry timer
  to 30s. Also, add an OOC lock while you're at it. The story
  will end far too quickly otherwise.
> Done.
> LGTM. Approved.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Candidate pull request approved. Added to merge queue.

Project Scum Villain's Self-Saving System ready for
production.